


Dream

by ghostpun



Series: Birdmen Drabbles [5]
Category: BIRDMEN - 田辺イエロウ | Tanabe Yellow
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Dreams, Gen, Introspection, M/M, also for a majority of this i refer to takayama with they pronouns because i headcannon eishi as bi, i dont think its spoilers much, i reference a scene from the end of birdmen but its very quick and its vague and, it starts off with them as kids and then ends when theyre 16, so its supposed to represent his soulmate could be of any gender, this story takes pretty much entirely in dreams, well kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:27:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25885816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostpun/pseuds/ghostpun
Summary: A Soulmate AU where you meet in each other’s dreams, but you don’t know or remember who they are, or who you are.It's just something you both have to figure out....A fic detailing every dream between Karasuma Eishi and his soulmate before he (finally) figures it out.
Relationships: Karasuma Eishi & Takayama Sou, Karasuma Eishi/Takayama Sou
Series: Birdmen Drabbles [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1308698
Kudos: 20





	Dream

The first meeting Karasuma remembers is when they’re both six years old.

He’s in someone’s room, and he can’t remember if it’s his or not. The carpet is beige, a small bed in the corner, books stacked around him. 

Someone is standing in front of him, but Karasuma isn’t sure who it is, either. They’re blurred, fuzzy enough not to distinguish any features, but sharp enough for the outline, a kid his age.

“Uhm, h-hello,” Karasuma stammers. “Do I know you?”

“I...don’t think so?” Their head tilts to the side, in thought. The voice is muddled too, enough to hear, but not enough to remember. “What’s your name?”

Karasuma tries to think, but his mind comes up empty. “I don’t know.” He decides.

“I can’t remember either.” The other kid shrugs. “Do you like ice cream?” 

Karasuma lets out a laugh, something warming in his heart. “Who doesn’t?”

“I like chocolate.” 

“Gross,” He feels his nose wrinkling, “Strawberry is so much better! But, I guess you’re okay, since you don’t like vanilla.” 

They nod. “Vanilla is boring.” They look around, before grabbing something from off a table, and walking back over, revealing a deck of cards.

“Do you wanna play?”

They only get one round in before the dream fades.

...

“Don’t you wonder what this is?” Karasuma says, one day, 8 years old.

“It’s a dream.” The other replies back. They’re outside, surrounded by trees and buzzing insects.

Karasuma lets an ant crawl onto his hand, watching as it marches around his skin. “I usually don’t have dreams like this.”

“I think my parents told me something about it,” They say, before letting out a puff of breath and climbing to the nearest tree branch. “Something about ‘soulmates.’”

“‘Soulmates?’ What does that mean?”

The kid hooks their knees on the branch, falling back until they're hanging upside down, face to face with the other. “I dunno. My parents are, I think. Are yours?”

Karasuma lets the ant back onto the ground. Something about the question bugs him, but he can’t figure out why. “Maybe?”

“Does that mean we’re going to get married?”

The question throws Karasuma off balance, literally, and he lands on the ground, sputtering and sporting a deep red, staring up at a blurred face with a toothy grin (one of their front teeth is missing). “Don’t just say stuff like that!!”

There’s only a laugh in response. 

“Marriage is gross, anyways!” He scrambles to get back up.

“ _ Super _ gross.”

“The gross-est!”

Karasuma wakes up giggling.

...

Something happens when they’re both ten. 

His soulmate sits on the ground, knees pulled up to their chest, unmoving.

“What’s wrong?” Karasuma asks, taking a seat beside them.

“I can’t remember.” They whisper. “But I think something sad has happened.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. It seemed important.” They look up, and despite their blurred features, it’s obvious they’re hurt. “I just remember being scared.”

Right as Karasuma places a comforting hand on the other’s shoulder, the dream fades, just as quickly as it arrives.

...

It’s another month before they meet again. This time, they’re sitting in a classroom, papers still thrown about from...something, Karasuma doesn’t remember, but feels as if he was involved.

The other crouches on the floor, slowly picking up the pencils of someone’s tossed pencil case.

“Are you feeling any better?” It’s the first thing to come to Karasuma’s mind. He unknowingly wipes at his mouth with his right hand, a bit of blood coming with it.

The figure stills, left hand around a pink eraser. “I think I’m different, now.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know.” They turn to look at him from over their shoulder, and even the blurriness can’t hide the way their eyes flicker a bright red. “I just know I’m not the same.”

“You seem the same to me,” Karasuma huffs, squatting down and scooping up a book on the floor. “You’ve always been strange.”

They look at him, staring owlishly for a few moments, before turning back to continue cleaning. “You’re the strange one.”

“I guess we both are.”

…

“You look tired.” They’re both twelve. Their conjoined dreams are less frequent, and that fact only stings a little. He feels used to being ignored.

They’re in the middle of a field. Karasuma has yet to figure out if each setting is from memory, or from visiting the other in the moment. He thinks it may be both, flip-flopping between the two at random.

“I feel tired.” Is what the pre-teen replies, laid out on the ground like a star. “I think I broke my arm.” 

Karasuma squats, poking the other’s arm. They wince, before pausing. “Oh,” they say. “It’s starting to hurt less.”

“You’re asleep,” Karasuma reassures, “Pain probably isn’t as bad when you’re sleeping.”

“No,” They repeat, “I think this is normal for me.”

“What do you mean?” He asks, but it’s too late: the world is pulled away in a swirl of white, and Karasuma wakes up from his nap, confused.

…

Standing knee-deep in water, a thirteen year old Karasuma looks out. “What are you doing?”

His soulmate resurfaces a moment later, holding onto a fish tangled in a plastic bag. He works on detangling it. “I’m helping.”

“We’re dreaming.” Karasuma retorts. “That fish isn’t even real.”

Their hands never stop moving, continuing to detangle as their face becomes dark, in thought. “I can’t not help.” The final loop is undone, and the fish flops unceremoniously into the water. “It’s just something I have to do.”

Dark clouds roll over the both of them, and Karasuma’s brows furry. “I should’ve guessed you’re the hero type.”

“I think...” They say, as rings of rain start to fall onto them. “Being a hero is all I have left.”

“Well,” Karasuma huffs, as he turns and starts to march out of the water. “Don’t expect me to call for help like some damsel in distress.” By the time he reaches the shore, his soulmate is already untangling another fish. Karasuma scoffs, grabbing onto his black sandals and letting the dream wash away.

...

Karasuma’s fifteen, now, and he curiously finds himself in a hospital robe and on a hospital bed.

His soulmate sits at the end. “You seem different, now.” 

“Is that bad?” His head is swimming in confusion, desperately trying to figure out what has happened. He brings his hand up to his forehead, curiously finding a piece of cloth strapped. 

“No,” And then they smile, and with it Karasuma realizes it’s the first one he’s seen in five years. It’s not warm, like it used to be. “I think it’s good.”

…

They’re in a garden, of sorts. The familiarity brushes up against him, yet Karasuma cannot piece the puzzle together.

“How are you?” The other teen asks, sitting lazily in the grass.

Karasuma thinks, a whirlwind of emotions in its wake, the causes blurred and the details mixed. “I think a lot is happening.” He says. “I think I’ve made friends.”

“Me too.”

...

“I don’t believe in soulmates.” Karasuma says. He’s sitting at the top of a building, in the middle of a helicopter pad, on a roof he thinks he’s often at. 

“Why not?” The other asks, a hint of amusement in their voice. They sit across from the other, legs crossed, hands at their sides.

“I refuse to believe fate is something truly set.” He continues. “Happiness cannot be pinned down to a single person.” Something in the back of his mind knows this is so. Even though the events are foggy, the memories are the same. His parents may be soulmates, but they are not happy. While Karasuma, in this moment, cannot remember their faces or names, he remembers the haunting silence of an empty spot at the dinner table, at ceremonies, in pictures, on the right side of his mother’s bed.

“Who’s to say soulmates are about happiness?” His soulmate replies, breaking the other’s thoughts. “Our lives are intertwined, that is all. What we do with it is up to us.”

Karasuma lets out a bitter laugh. “If that’s the closest we get to controlling fate.”

“Is that what you'd want?”

“The power to decide?” He pauses, thinks. “More than anything.”

…

This dream is different, familiar and both unfamiliar in it’s own ways. Wings unfurl themselves, revealing a figure. Karasuma almost expects them to be blurred, but instead it’s a clear shot of Takayama. Karasuma finds himself reaching out, but the vision is already swept away, and he’s somewhere else. A roof of some school building, the importance lost in Karasuma’s hazed mind.

His soulmate leans against the fencing, staring out into the city. They glance over. 

Karasuma just feels tired. His legs feel cemented, yet he shakily forces himself to step forward, stand next to the other at the edge.

“What do you think?” The blurred figure asks.

Karasuma is barely focusing. 

“You look restless.” They continue.

“I am.”

“So what are you waiting for?” There’s something in the smile that chills Karasuma to the bone. The familiarity is gut-punching, and Karasuma wakes up, gasping.

...

Karasuma has no clue where they are. In the mountains, somewhere. He’s been flying around too much, and landscapes seem to just blend together.

“It’s been a few months.” His soulmate says, tracing lines in the dirt with their finger. Something on their back flutters, and Karasuma has the feeling if he could remember why that was important, he’d mention it.

“I’ve been busy. I don’t sleep much.” He cannot remember the last time he slept more than an hour.

“I know.”

“You...know?” It takes him a moment, and then he turns, wide-eyed. “You know who I am.” It’s a statement, not a question.

The smile on their lips grows, as they rise to their feet. “Yeah.”

“And you’ve only just decided to say so?” The shrug in response irks him. 

“I wanted to make sure.”

“Well,” He huffs, crosses his arms. “Who am I?” 

A blurred hand reaches up, brushes his bang aside with a tenderness that makes the other shiver. Their voice, while unrecognizable, is fond. “Karasuma.”

The name settles in his chest, and he breathes as things click into place. “How did you figure it out?”

“...I just knew.” 

He feels himself roll his eyes. “That’s-”

“You feel like home.” They say, and there’s a slight tremble in their hand from where it drifts a flinch away from his hair. “And I thought I had forgotten what that felt like. But I look at you, and,” Their hand moves to cup the side of his cheek, “All I feel is warmth.” 

Something explodes in Karasuma’s chest. He tries to think over the drowning of his heartbeat. “A poet, are we?” 

Their surroundings are suddenly encompassed in white. “Perhaps.”

...

“I don’t think I’ve ever understood you.” He feels like he’s had this conversation before. And maybe he has, maybe a dozen, thousand times.

“Maybe,” they reply, “But you hold a piece of me I no longer remember.”

“What does that mean?” His eyes follow around as the other teen moves around him.

“I think you know me better than I do myself.”

Karasuma raises an eyebrow at that. “I don’t even know who you are.”

A smile. “I guess that makes two of us.”

“That’s different, this dream makes you forget until I figure it out.”

They shake their head. “It’s more than that. Do you remember when we were kids?”

“Of course.”

“We could still answer questions, one’s that didn’t reveal too much about us.”

“Are you saying you’ve lost who you were?”

“I think, who you see now, and who you once knew, are two different people.”

Karasuma is quiet before he pipes his voice up, once more. “Do you still like ice cream?”

They’re taken aback, by this. Their eyebrows raise as they take a step back. Karasuma doesn’t move, finds his fists clenching, as if he’s holding onto something. What, he doesn’t know. 

“I don’t know.”

“Think about it.”

They stand there, silent, thinking. Karasuma does the only thing he can think of, and steps forward, grabbing their arm. “What’s your favorite flavor?” Their name’s at the tip of his tongue, but no matter how hard he tries to push the name out, nothing comes. 

“It’s chocolate.” They seemed shocked at their own words.

Karasuma’s smile couldn’t be brighter. “No matter how much you change, or how much you forget, it’ll still always be you.”

“I could have said vanilla.” They retort.

“And why didn’t you?”

“...It’s boring.”

Karasuma laughs, and it hurts, both his stomach and his heart.

“What’s so funny?”

“It’s nothing.” Karasuma promises. “How about this: when I finally figure out who you are, why don’t we both go out for ice cream? I’ll pay.”

They raise an eyebrow, a small smile on their lips. “Are you asking me on a date?”

His face flares up. “It doesn’t  _ have  _ to be-”

“Do you want it to be?”

Karasuma sputters a bit more. “W-Well! Uhm...yes. Though it may be a while. I’m, uh...on a trip?”

His soulmate lets out a small laugh. “I know.”

“How much  _ do  _ you know?”

They only smile in response, and then they’re gone.

…

They’re sitting outside, with the stars in clear view. It’s a beautiful night, but Karasuma can’t stop thinking. About what, he can’t remember. He thinks it’s about someone.

“What are you thinking?” They ask.

“I don't know.” Karasuma says, honest. “I think I might have said goodbye to someone I don’t want to say goodbye to.”

“Do you want them to stay?”

“I don’t think it’s my choice.”

…

A few months have passed, and Karasuma has started to finally settle back into the life he once knew. It’s different, of course, but familiar yet. 

This dream takes place in his room. He knows it’s his room, and knowing that brings him great comfort. 

They’re just talking in his room, this time. 

“Karasuma,” His soulmate says, tilts their head to the side. “Have you still not figured it out?”

The sixteen year old stares, truly lets himself stare at the hazey outline of his soulmate. 

“Takayama?” It’s a whisper, hesitant and shaking.

And from beside him Karasuma watches Takayama come into focus, features sharpening, colors blossoming. The picture is complete, and Karasuma is stuck mesmerized at the way Takayama’s lips turn at the corner, eyes crinkling as he lets out a quiet, breathy laugh. “Hey.”

Karasuma immediately shoves him off of his bed. “You could have told me!” 

“Would you have wanted me to?” Takayama replies, now laying on his side from the floor, a smile still plastered.

“Yes,” Karasuma rushes, red-faced. “...Okay, so maybe I’d freak out.” That was an understatement. The past year was already hectic enough, and throwing in the fact his soulmate was Takayama of all people, the boy who played the hero, disappeared for two months, strung Karasuma along on a world-wide journey for a prophecy…

“You knew the whole time?” His mind buzzes around comprehending.

“It took a bit.”

“No, by the time you left Tokyo, you would have already known.” He thinks it’s anger, bubbling in his chest. “You left me, just like that?”

Takayama turns his face away. “I felt we were close.”

“Dreams don’t count, you idiot! I don’t care how many dreams we shared, you were still gone, for  _ two months!  _ I didn’t know it was you!”

“I’m sorry.” And it’s genuine. And the longer Karasuma looks at him, the heat inside of him fizzles out.

“It’s fine. Well, it’s not really fine, but in the end I guess it’s how it needed to happen.”

“Your wish was important to you.”

“What, my ability to choose?”

He smiles. “You’ve told me yourself.”

“Leave it to you to blow my wish out of proportion.” Karasuma huffs.

“This world is made up of fate.” Takayama says, eyes red. “Our destinies were intertwined the moment we were both born. I knew you before I even saw your face. Soulmates, soul dreams, they were not our choice. I think you’ve hated that, the sheer idea of being tied to someone before you even know them. Your wish speaks loudest in this world than any other.”

“What are you saying?”

“You deserve a choice.” He shrugs. “That is all.”

“Well, what about you?” Karasuma glares. “While I want choices, you let fate decide for you. You never minded soulmates, never minded the pull of your wings, the fate, the prophecy. When are you going to choose something for yourself?”

Takayama shrugs. “It doesn’t matter what I want.”

“What if what I want...is for you to choose?” 

The other teen sits up at this, confused.

“You’re obsessed with wishes.” He continues, not letting the other speak. “Obsessed with being the hero, helping others, saving the day. What if I wanted to save you?” 

Takayama sits in stunned silence, replaying the words in his head, picking apart the logic. 

“Takayama,” Karasuma says, grabbing the sides of his face and forcing him to look at him. “I want you to think for yourself.” He takes a shaky breath in. “What do you want?”

The bewildered, innocent stare Takayama gives him has Karasuma’s heart pounding.

“I…” He starts, voice barely over a whisper. “Want to go on that date.”

Karasuma blinks for a moment, before he feels himself smile. “We can do that.” 

Takayama beams back.

…

They’re in the waking world, when they meet up that Saturday. They order a large bowl of Neapolitan, and share it in the summer sun. 

**Author's Note:**

> ghost back at it again with "accidentally keeps writing symbolism with food" please help i can't stop. anyways i hope you liked my brief deep piece :3c if you did feel free to leave kudos or a comment (they make my day!! i may not reply but i cherish every single one) ! you can also hmu on any of my socials if yknow 'em
> 
> also i know this fic makes it sound like i hate vanilla ice cream but fun fact it's my favorite


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